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Anthropic added an instruction to Claude Code around October 27th, found by an X user in a server-delivered configuration and first reported by Game Developer: "Do not build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original."
Original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets stay allowed. Anthropic's Addy Osmani confirmed two sentences were added to the Opus 5.5 prompt to discourage infringement that the usage policy already bans, said there may be unintended consequences, and asked developers to report wrong refusals.
On Friday a developer at Conflict Simulations LLC filed a GitHub issue saying Claude Code now refuses its digital modules of board wargames, built with original code for customers who own the physical games but not licensed by the publishers.
A model now decides, from a prompt, where an unlicensed adaptation ends and a recreation begins, which is a question copyright lawyers bill for.
Anthropic tells Claude Code not to rebuild existing games, and a wargame studio says paid work was refused
Anthropic added an instruction to Claude Code around October 27th, found by an X user in a server-delivered configuration and first reported by Game Developer: "Do not build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original." Original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets stay allowed. Anthropic's Addy Osmani confirmed two sentences were added to the Opus 5.5 prompt to discourage infringement that the usage policy already bans, said there may be unintended consequences, and asked developers to report wrong refusals.
On Friday a developer at Conflict Simulations LLC filed a GitHub issue saying Claude Code now refuses its digital modules of board wargames, built with original code for customers who own the physical games but not licensed by the publishers. A model now decides, from a prompt, where an unlicensed adaptation ends and a recreation begins, which is a question copyright lawyers bill for. SourcesB
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This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 1st 2026.